Rhetoric in Modern Japan
Subtitle: Western Influences on the Development of Narrative and Oratorical Style
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: August 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 214
ISBN-13: 9780824827984
Subjects: Literary studies: 19th century; Literary studies: from c 1900 -; Language Arts & Disciplines; Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy; Japanese; Language; Japanese language; 1868-; Rhetoric
Description: "Rhetoric in Modern Japan is the first volume to discuss the role of Western rhetoric in the creation of a modern Japanese oral and narrative style. It considers the introduction of Western rhetoric, clarifying its interactions with the forces and synergies that shaped Japanese literature and culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on the Meiji and Taisho years (1868-1926), it challenges the prevailing view among contemporary scholars that rhetoric did not play a significant role in the literary developments of the period. Massimiliano Tomasi chronicles the blooming of scholarship in the field in the early 1870s, providing the first descriptive analysis and cogently articulated critique of the major rhetorical treatises of the time. In discussing the rise of public speaking in early Meiji society, he unveils the existence of crucial links between the study of rhetoric and the social and literary events of the time, underscoring the key role played by oratory both as a tool for social modernization and as an effective platform for the reappraisal of the spoken language."--BOOK JACKET.